“The Negro Speaks Of Rivers”

By Langston Hughes

I've known rivers:
I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow

of human blood in human veins.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.
I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.
I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.
I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.
I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln went

down to New Orleans, and I've seen its muddy bosom
turn
all golden in the sunset.

I've known rivers:
Ancient, dusky rivers.
My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

1922